


atlas

by ThanksForListening



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Wanda character study, also billy and tommy r here too, does it count as character death if technically he's already dead?, i couldn't remember their comic names so i didn't know how to tag them, post 1x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:21:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29255127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanksForListening/pseuds/ThanksForListening
Summary: "Cracks had been building since the start. Wanda wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t see them. Dinner. The beekeeper. The imposter. It had lived in her, the pressure, the weight of the walls she refused to let crumble.She’d patched them up as best she could. Every hole, every slip, she’d fixed with a spark of red. When bandages weren’t enough, she’d held the world together herself, thrown it onto her back without a second thought. Any pain she had to endure would be welcomed, if it meant salvation.But when the curtain fell and the lights dimmed, when the credits began to roll and the actors took their bows, the undeniable truth couldn’t be ignored: her world was bleeding out. And she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to save it."or, an idea of what the end might look like.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Monica Rambeau, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	atlas

**Author's Note:**

> ok so I wrote this almost entirely before 1x05 came out and then got too lazy to change things so we're briefly pretending that episode didn't happen. Also I kept everything that would be plot related vague bc I've read too many theories to commit to one for the purpose of this fic lol. 
> 
> I don't think this needs any trigger warnings but if I'm wrong pls let me know so I can add some.

Nobody touched her when it was over. An army of agents, and all they could do was stare. 

The battle had been quick enough. If she was being honest, she didn’t remember most of it. Newscasters would report about a red sky, booming thunder but no rain in sight. Before, that type of attention might have sent her heart racing, might have caused a panic over the delicacy of her public perception. Not anymore. She didn’t care about what they might say. She didn’t care about whoever was behind it, the puppet master pulling her strings. She didn’t care about anything at all. 

—

Cracks had been building since the start. Wanda wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t see them. Dinner. The beekeeper. The imposter. It had lived in her, the pressure, the weight of the walls she refused to let crumble. 

She’d patched them up as best she could. Every hole, every slip, she’d fixed with a spark of red. When bandages weren’t enough, she’d held the world together herself, thrown it onto her back without a second thought. Any pain she had to endure would be welcomed, if it meant salvation. 

But when the curtain fell and the lights dimmed, when the credits began to roll and the actors took their bows, the undeniable truth couldn’t be ignored: her world was bleeding out. And she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to save it. 

—

Interrogation rooms were their own kind of deception. She’d spent enough time in them to know that nobody was ever on her side. Promises made were nothing but lies cloaked in pleasantries that would crumble the minute Wanda opened her mouth. And despite their claims, nobody would ever listen to anything they couldn’t use against her.

She was only vaguely aware of the man sitting in front of her. Suit that screamed government, grey hair that couldn’t hide the youth underneath. She didn’t have to hear him — he’d follow the same script as the others. He’d say he only wanted to ask her some questions, would talk in his most neutral voice, would do his best to keep either fear or disgust or both out of his eyes. When she didn’t answer, he’d get angry. The volume would increase with every lack of reaction, until she could feel his spit on her cheeks and his fists pounding against the table.

It wouldn’t work. All their notes and profiles and desperate attempts to figure her out, and they never learned. She’d spent two days waiting to die. When hunger gnawed at her gut, when fear shook every bone in her body, when an exhale could have brought the whole building crashing down around her, she’d survived. When the only thing standing between life and death was her strength of will, it became a power of its own. 

Threats of making a home out of a prison cell she’d lived in before fell flat at her feet. The straightjacket’s embrace was too familiar to cause the discomfort they hoped for. Her eyes had watched the world disintegrate into nothing. Her body had been torn apart and put back together by the same hands. Over and over and over again she’d let her heart attach itself to another’s, only to end up shattered, pieces jagged and sharp and as dangerous as the rest of her.

Rock bottom had its perks; there wasn’t a single thing these agents could say or do to make her life any worse.

—

Chaos came quickly. She wasn’t sure if everyone else could see it. There was a buzz in the air, a mimicry of the white noise that indicated a lost connection. Standing in the middle of the street, she could see the houses flickering, their occupants an artificial type of calm. They were all watching her. 

He was watching her, too. The facade had faded, the concern of people seeing his real face forgotten entirely. He wasn’t one to panic often, but she could see it in his eyes. They didn’t search for anyone or anything else, didn’t hunt for a culprit the way she had. They just stayed glued to her. “Wanda.” The desperation was quiet. She wasn’t sure anyone else would have noticed it. “You have to make it stop.”

“I’m trying. I don’t know how.”

“What do you mean you don’t know how?“

“I mean, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know how to stop it.”

“But—but before, you always—“

“That was different! The small stuff was easy, but this...something’s wrong at its core. It’s out of my hands.”

He looked like he didn’t want to ask. “How? How could that be possible?”

“Because,” she said, fighting the voice in her head that demanded she keep her mouth shut. “I didn’t put us here, Vision.” 

The words felt like a confession. It wasn’t her. It never had been. She could fix it, could adjust the world she lived in, but she hadn’t created it. And she certainly wasn’t behind its destruction.

“Then—then we can just leave. Let it fall apart. We’ll live outside, go to a new town, buy a new house. Start over.”

She shook her head. “We can’t.”

“But why—“

“ _You_ can’t.” God, she was so sick of crying. The walls tried to close in on her, as if they could feel her heart tightening. She pushed them back, forced air into her lungs and refused to let go. 

“Wanda.” Even now, his voice had a softness, a gentle touch that she hadn’t found anywhere else. “Am I...did something happen to me? Before we came to Westview?” 

The pressure grew, and she couldn’t keep a shout in as her grip tightened on their reality. 

“Wanda, you have to tell me. Please.”

She’d never regretted anything about their relationship. She’d cursed the circumstances, condemned fate and bureaucracy and everything else that kept them apart, but never the bond itself. Not until now. All she wanted to do was look away, but her eyes met his against her will. It was like they were drawn to him, like something cosmic was tying them together. Not even their world collapsing could stop it.

“You—“ her voice shook, the images coming too quickly for her to block out. “You asked me to do it. To destroy it.” The light had been blinding, had robbed her of seeing his face one last time. He’d promised her he felt no pain, but he’d forgotten where her powers came from, the energy source that fueled them both. And in the moment before the blast, when it sent out a desperate plea, a last-ditch effort to avoid combustion, she’d felt it. Even with Thanos to her left, even with the fate of the world in her hands, she would have hesitated. She would have done anything to stop that feeling, to keep him and the stone intact.

It didn’t give her the chance. 

“The stone.” He said it like he remembered. She prayed he didn’t. 

“You begged me. You said it—it had to be me. There was no one else.”

The look in his eyes didn’t change. Even in her worst, even when she’d turned her power against him, he’d never held an ounce of fear toward her. “And did you?” 

She nodded. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to, but I did, and then...and then _he_ —“

The sky nearly collapsed; saving it was agony. He reached for her when she screamed, tried to protect her from the threat he couldn’t feel. Wanda wanted nothing more than to run to him, but she couldn’t let go. She wasn’t sure what would happen to him if she did.

He frowned. It looked all wrong on him. “You can’t hold on for much longer.”

“Yes, I can.”

“If it isn’t you, then there’s someone else behind all of this. And I don’t think they’re going to stop until Westview is no more.”

She shook her head. “I can fix it.”

“It’s draining you. I can feel it. I can feel _you._ ”

A shiver went up her spine. “Don’t say that.”

“The boys, the town — can they survive outside?”

“I don’t know!” The barrier pulsed. Billy, Tommy, their neighbors, they were safe so long as they were here. She could fix anything inside these walls; it was outside she couldn’t control. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, more to herself than to him. “I don’t know.”

—

They left her alone for a while. As if they thought solitude might drive her mad enough to give them some kind of confession. As if they thought she still had a sound mind to lose. 

Wanda didn’t care. If she closed her eyes, she could relive the moments she longed to go back to. Vision holding Tommy for the first time. Sharing ice cream in the park. Billy falling asleep in her arms. It wasn’t the same, but it was better than staring at nothing. Better than remembering reality. 

She didn’t move when she heard the door open. It didn’t matter that he’d come back; nothing he said or did could pull her from where she longed to be. The sound of the chair screeching against the floor didn’t phase her, not when she could replace it with his endearingly pitiful singing, echos from his desperate attempt to distract his boss’s wife. 

“Hey, neighbor.” Her eyes betrayed her, snapped open at the familiar voice. Her hair was different, and she wore an outfit that made it clear she was with whatever group had cleaned up the mess. None of that mattered — she’d recognize those eyes anywhere. They’d belonged to an ally once. A friend. 

The collar around her throat vibrated at her body’s instinctive call to her powers. Those eyes had also belonged to an enemy. 

“I should probably start with an apology.” If she expected Wanda to react to her words, she didn’t let it show. “Although, to be fair, that town pulled me in without giving me much of a choice in the matter. That probably should have been my first clue that it wasn’t your doing.”

Wanda held her tongue. She was a prop, a familiar face being used against her. The good cop in relation to the bad cop she’d met earlier. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of breaking her. 

And yet, the temptation grew, ever so slightly. It was the first time since the fight that she’d seen anyone from Westview. 

“I should also tell you that everyone from that suburban nightmare is alright. I mean, they’re disoriented as fuck, but they’ll survive.”

The question sat heavy on her tongue, itching to come out. She refused to let it. 

Her face softened. “We don’t know anything about the twins,” she told her, answering the very thing Wanda couldn’t ask. “It’s like they just...disappeared. Like they never existed. I’m sorry.”

She shut her eyes again. She didn’t want to think about that, about who else she may have left behind. Who else died with Westview. 

—

“ _Wanda._ ” 

“I can fix it.” Her arms were locked above her head, her effort covering their entire town in red. “I can fix it, Vis. I can fix it.”

“You’re the strongest person I know. You’re the strongest person on this planet. But some things just can’t be fixed.”

“No, I can do it. I can stop it.”

“Someone’s doing this to us, Wanda. They’re trapping all these people in here.”

“No. This isn’t a trap. It’s our home.”

“It’s not.”

“Why can’t it be?” The desperation was palpable, but she couldn’t find the energy to care. “Does it matter that we didn’t create this world? It gave me you. It gave us our family.”

“Darling, if I— if I can’t live out there, then it isn’t real.”

“Bullshit. We’re real, aren’t we? Our love for each other is real. Our love for our boys is real.”

“Yes, but—“

“This life, it can be our reality. I can _make_ it our reality.”

“And what about everyone else?” He pointed behind them, motioned to the rows of houses that lined the street. “Does our reality become theirs as well?”

“I—I don’t know. I didn’t bring them here.”

“But if you fix it, if you build Westview’s walls back up, they’ll be trapped with us.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know you do.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t care about anybody else.”

“You’re a hero, Wanda. You care about helping people. You have a good heart and you fight for what’s right. And that’s why you have to let it go.”

Her knees threatened to buckle underneath her. “Why?” She yelled loud enough for the forces of the universe to hear her. “Why do I always have to lose everything to save everyone else? Why does it always have to be me?”

“I don’t know. I know everything else in the world except for why you constantly have to hurt the most.”

She stared at him, memorized every inch of his face. It was a habit she’d developed years ago, when their meetings were few and far between. A temporary fix to tide her over until she never had to stop looking. 

The tears hadn’t stopped since the collapse began, but she felt them fall even faster. “It isn’t fair.”

“I know it’s not. But you have to be the hero, Wanda.”

“What’s the point? What’s the point of winning if I’m only going to lose you?”

“You can save everyone else. All our neighbors and friends. Our boys. I’m not worth hurting them. I’m not worth you hurting yourself.”

“You are.” She begged him to hear her, to believe her. “You’re worth everything.”

“I can’t be.” The desperation she’d monopolized slipped into his voice. “You can’t let me be.”

It was an impossible ask. He was blessed with ignorance, with the gift of the sacrificed. He gave his life, but she had to live with it. To watch him die, _twice,_ and be expected to move on and be okay. 

“Please don’t ask me to do this,” she pleaded, her voice bargaining with him even when she knew it was fruitless. “I can’t—I can’t lose you again.”

He put his palm on her cheek, and she melted into it. “How can you lose me if I’m already gone?”

“You’re not gone to me.”

“And I never will be. I promise.”

She looked up, stared at the red that continued to spill into the sky, forming a dome all around them. Her strength, materialized. When she’d signed up for it, what felt like lifetimes ago, she’d been desperate for some kind of control. Something she could use to protect herself, her brother, her home. A reason to never be afraid again.

“I don’t want it.” It wasn’t the first time she’d thought it, but it was the only time she’d felt confident in the feeling. “I don’t want this power anymore.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. This...this _curse,_ all it ever does is hurt people. All I ever do is hurt people.”

“You have never hurt me, Wanda.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I have. I’ve thrown you so far into the ground I don’t know how you ever came back up. I’ve changed your perception, your thoughts.” She took a breath. “I’ve killed you, Vision.”

“You’ve also given me more joy than I ever thought possible. You’ve given me our family. You’ve given me _time,_ Wanda. Time to experience everything life has to offer. I have never felt more human than when I’m with you. I can’t begin to explain what that means to me. ”

“What good are my powers if they can’t save you? What good am I if I can’t keep you?”

He brought his second hand up, held her face in his palms. “Darling, our life here has felt like a fairytale. Even in its flaws and imperfections, it’s been bliss. But our story has to end. Like every story does.”

Her voice got caught in her throat. “It’s too short.”

“The best tales often are.”

The pressure increased. Any more and she knew she’d be on her knees, crumbling under the weight of the world. Atlas reimagined. 

Her mind tried to balance the scales, the consequences of holding on and letting go. Every calculation only ended in pain. If it was only hers, if he had asked her to let him stay, then maybe...maybe she’d be able to make the choice she wanted to make. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard.

Wanda closed her eyes, gave herself a moment she didn’t have. He’d suffered enough at her hands. 

“Billy,” she whispered. “Tommy.” They’d split up, gone to different ends of the town to try and keep it in one piece, but she knew somehow they’d hear her. 

In an instant Tommy was by her side; not ten seconds later, Billy joined them. 

“I’m putting everything I’ve got into it, Mom, but it’s hardly making a difference.”

“I haven’t found a weak spot yet,” Tommy added, “but I’ll keep looking. There’s got to be an error somewhere. Something we can fix.”

She wasn’t sure she could stand it. Staring at them, she could see her and Pietro, not just in their powers but in their personality. Their determination, their empathy, their passion. Wanda sent up a prayer to anyone who might listen for then to have the future her and her brother had been robbed of. 

“Boys,” she said, her breathing becoming more labored with every passing second. “Hold onto your father.”

They hesitated, gave each other a look before they moved from her side to Vision’s. Looking at him, she saw the understanding in his eyes as he put his arms around them. 

“No matter what happens,” he said, “this family has been my greatest light. And you have been my shining star, my love. My anchor in a world I was never meant for. They may not see you the way I do right now, but they will.”

She could have lifetimes and never find the right words to express how much he meant to her. “You will always be my compass,” she told him. “My guide when I’m losing my way. Loving you is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

It wasn’t lost on her that they’d never exchanged vows, never had a ceremony to profess their love for one another. The world and its cruel sense of irony, giving them the chance only in their conclusion. 

“Mom,” Billy said. “We’ll see each other again, won’t we?”

If there was any part of her heart that had yet to shatter, it imploded at his words. “I promise you that one day, we’ll be together again. I won’t let anything keep me from you two.” 

She wasn’t sure if it was a promise she’d be able to keep, but she made it anyway, and meant every word. Throwing a last ditch effort into the ceiling above her, she straightened her knees, stood up as tall as she could. 

Her eyes met his, for maybe the last time. He’d always felt real to her. Not just a vessel but a soul, one that lived and breathed even when his body didn’t. In a world that had never cared for her, he made her feel safe. She wondered if she’d ever find that feeling again. 

His hands weren’t on her face anymore, but she swore she could still feel him. “You are everything that is good about humanity, Wanda. Never forget that.”

Five seconds. That was how long she gave herself to look at him, at the three of them. Her family. The only thing that mattered. She couldn’t keep them, but she could give herself this one thing. This last moment. 

Wanda let go. She threw herself forward, into their open arms. “I love you,” she whispered, closed her eyes and put herself on repeat. _I love you_. The world sparked like a cut cable. _I love you._ The ground beneath them trembled. _I love you._ The warmth, the weight in her arms, dissolved into nothing but air. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

—

“You know, I understand where you’re coming from. Why you’d stay.”

Neutrality be damned; Wanda let the glare through, let her know exactly how she felt about that assertion. The agent before her had taken a sick kind of pleasure in letting her know how twisted her delusion was, how weak she must have been to not only fall for it, but fight for it. Had she put an ounce of effort into listening to his words, she might have shown him exactly what that weakness looked like. 

“I’m serious.” The agent formerly known as her neighbor kept going. “You were blipped, weren’t you?” Wanda’s face must have reflected her confusion, because she elaborated. “You disappeared. Woke up and realized the world had kept spinning without you on it.”

She didn’t give anything away. It wasn’t a real question. 

“I was, too. Closed my eyes next to my mom’s hospital bed and opened them to find it empty.” She looked up at her, and Wanda could see the tears in her eyes, the pain hidden behind them. It was unnerving, how familiar it felt. “I’ll never understand it. How a person can be fine one day and gone the next. How quickly they can be taken away. How the body can rebel against itself and take the mind and soul with it.”

A voice echoed in her mind, her brother’s teasing just minutes before his last breath. He’d laughed that afternoon. The sound haunted her, snuck into her dreams even now. She didn’t think she’d ever stop hearing it.

“The people who survived, they don’t really get it. How awful it is, making up for lost time. Everyone else has moved on, but for me, the pain was so...fresh. It still is. So, yeah. I don’t blame you. Hell, if I had been in your position, I’d probably do the same thing.”

Wanda wondered what the point of it all was. Whether hearing about her grief was supposed to make her open up, cry about her feelings and bond over their shared trauma. She’d tried that before. It didn't make her feel any better, knowing that other people suffered. Especially since their grief always felt like a luxury compared to hers. A singular loss, a life without constant disapproval from people who held fractions of the responsibility she was chained with. It only reaffirmed what she already knew to be true: the world had a unique and bitter vendetta against her. And it wouldn’t let up until she cracked underneath it. 

“I’m not telling you to make you feel bad, or to try and say that what I’ve been through can compare to what’s happened to you.” Wanda wondered for half a second if they trained them for this, a powerless type of mind reading. “I just want you to know that there’s someone on your side here. Someone who doesn’t think you’re a villain.”

The word made her heart skip a beat. He’d used its antonym with pride. When the world couldn’t make up its mind about her, he’d never had a doubt. If he could hear it, the one-sided conversation, he’d be beaming. Proof, he’d say, of someone who shared his point of view. Proof that he’d been right. Proof that she wasn’t a lost cause.

As she got up and turned toward the door, all Wanda could see was his face. His desire for her to become everything he thought she could be. His love for her in all her messiness, in her broken and angry and scarred state. His need for her to trust that someone else would see her the way he did. 

“I’m guessing,” Wanda said quietly, freezing her in place with her hand on the doorknob, “your name _isn’t_ Geraldine.”

She glanced back at her with a mix of curiosity and amusement. If she heard the way Wanda’s voice had cracked, the hoarse consequence of the sobbing and screaming that had led her through the fight, she ignored it. 

After a few seconds, she smiled. “Can’t say that it is. But it did have a nice ring to it, didn’t it?” Not-Geraldine turned back, reached into her pocket and slid a business card across the table. “Captain Monica Rambeau. Nice to properly meet you.”

Wanda watched her go, waited until the door shut behind her before glancing down at the card. She memorized it the way she used to memorize faces. It was more than a plan for the future, a place to land should she crash and burn — it was hope, a sign that a future existed at all. A reminder she hadn’t realized she’d needed. 

She counted seconds. When enough time passed, she let her head tilt to the side, closed her eyes and only opened them when she felt the familiar red glow. The shock from the collar stung for a moment before it snapped, falling to pieces at her feet. The jacket followed, it’s straps undone with ease. Confinement was fine, for a while, but time was a resource she refused to waste anymore. Not when she still had promises to keep.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the angst I truly just could not help myself lol. tried to make it as happy of an ending as I could but I gotta admit things are not looking great for this pairing by the end of the series. 
> 
> also i don't care what she's done or what she will do wanda has done nothing wrong ever in her life and this is the hill i'll be dying on
> 
> I live for comments and kudos! If you wanna cry about these two with me find me on tumblr @thanks--for--listening


End file.
